PVP basics

Enhanced Battle System and PvP - Manual

(Mostly based on testserver so minor differences possible!)

Available simulators: Nuwozer's sim

Welcome to the brand new Expedition Mode of The Settler Online! In the Expedition Mode you can send out your Expedition Forces to find and conquer new islands, which are rich of resources. But beware: Other players and bandits populate those islands!

The new Expedition Mode brings a lot of new features to TSO, we hope you will enjoy. Amongst these are:

• A new, interactive combat system
• A PvP mode
• Generated maps
• New units and Generals
• A new option to gather rare resources by creating Colonies.

General information

New weapons, troops and buildings
Finding an Expedition Island
The Colony menu
Building up your defenses

Playing your first Expedition

How to play an Expedition
Setting up your army
How to conduct a combat
Troops in combat

1.I. General information
New weapons, troops and buildings

In order to claim new islands, you have now access to some specialized troops and buildings. These are specialized units you need in order to play an Expedition Island.

Both the new troop types and the new weapons needed to produce them unlock when you reach level 30.

Buildings:

• Combat Academy 
  Here you can train your Expedition troops.
  Note that they can only be used on Expeditions.
  For unit production you also need the new weapons provided in the Combat Armory.
  
  

• Combat Armory 
  The Combat Armory provides you with all weapons used by your expedition troops.
  Different to the regular weapon suppliers it works like a Provision House in which
  you need to select the weapons you want to build.
  

• Weapons:
  There are 6 new weapon types, which only will be used for Expedition troops.
  Weapons use standard resources produced on your island, mostly Iron and Hard Wood.

• Troops:
  There are 6 basic units you need to send on Expeditions. They can be built in the Combat Academy.
  Troops use the weapons provided by the Combat Armory, Settlers, Beer, and sometimes Horses.
  For more detailed information on troops please refer to the respective post about troops in combat.
    

• Marshals:Like in the current combat system you need Marshals to lead your troops into combat:
  • Marshals are your standard General type you will use in combat.
  • Field Marshals can transport a lot of troops to the expedition islands, but cannot engage in combat.
  The regular Marshals can be acquired from the Tavern and cost gold just like regular generals,
  while the Field Marshals can be bought from the “Expedition” shop category.

1.II. Finding an Expedition island

Expeditions work similar to adventures. You can only have one active Expedition OR Adventure at a time. Remember that you can only send your Marshals and troops to these untamed islands. They are trained to deal with the dangers waiting for you there. All known units you can use for standard adventures cannot be used on these islands.

Going on an Expedition is pretty easy. Just follow these 5 simple steps:

1. Select any Explorer
2. Select “Find Expedition”
3. Select the island size you are looking for
4. Pick 1 out of the 9 islands proposed to you from the Matchmaking Screen
5. Hit “Start conquering”

Hint(s):

• On the Matchmaking Screen you will preferably display player owned island. Sometimes, there are also only islands populated by bandits. Those give a smaller reward and can still be conquered by other players.
• By selecting a small, medium or large map you can define the length of your play session and the amount of units / resources you need. If you are only looking to play for about an hour, just pick a small map.
• You can discard all islands suggested to you and send your Explorer on a new search (for the same amount of resources that you paid before). But every Explorer will be blocked for a certain amount of time after coming back with some results.
• Also, keep in mind that the more you play and the more you win you will start getting harder maps to play with higher than average rewards.

1.III. The Colonies management menu

In the Colonies menu you can see your currently active Expedition (1). Once you successfully conquered an island, you can make it your own Colony (2) and it will start producing resources for 7 days. You can have up to 6 active Colonies (3) at the same time. Each Colony will provide you with a resource each 6 hours for as long as you can hold on to it (4).
You can keep track of what you gain every 6 hours from these colonies (5) and can pick it up by clicking on the “Gather resources” button (6). Keep in mind that in some cases (e.g. if a player takes a colony away from you) colonies can produce partial yields.

Hint(s):

• Before claiming an expedition island as a colony make sure you build up the defenses on that island to make it harder to conquer for other players.
• Once having conquered an island, you need to click “Make it my colony”, otherwise it will block your Adventure slot and will not start producing resources.
• After making a conquered island your Colony, it will be safe for the first 12 h. Then it can be found by other players and might be attacked.
• When you have made an island your Colony you cannot re-enter it.

1.IV Building up your defenses

Once you have conquered a new expedition, before making it an active colony, you can revisit it to build up your defenses. You can do this from the “Colony” menu, by clicking on the “Build colony defenses” button next to your active colony.

When doing so you will see the initial state of the island you have just fought and you can improve its defenses by adding additional camps in pre-defined building lot locations.

You can build different types of camps and then recruit “mercenary” units to defend them. Building camps and recruiting the units cost a new resource called “defense points”.

Each expedition comes with a pre-defined amount of “defense points” you can spend based on the difficulty of the map, making harder maps easier to defend.

For now there are 4 types of camps (melee, ranged, cavalry and mixed), each with 3 levels. The camp type defines the type(s) of units that can be used to defend it, while the levels simply make each camp able to hold more units.

Hint(s):

• Try to remember what you did in order to conquer the island, what were the weak points and try to add camps especially in those areas.
• Remember that some camps which you might have ignored while attacking can be made useful for defense if their agro zones would overlap one of your newly placed camps.

Playing your first Expedition
How to play an Expedition

When going on an Expedition you have the chance to claim an untamed island for your kingdom. But these islands are all inhabited by bandits and other players who made themselves a home there. Your goal is simple:

• Defeat the enemy Map Boss to conquer the island and make it your own Colony sector by sector.

Although similar in that regard to standard Adventures, the way you should play an Expedition differs
a lot. Here is some key advice you should follow:

• Watch your troop limit

You cannot bring more troops to the island than stated in the troop limit. Mostly, you will encounter more enemy troops on the island as you are allowed to bring. Thus, you need to choose your fights carefully and try to keep as many of your own troops alive.
Also, you can only bring a certain number of Marshals at once on the island. Take into account that you can send them back and forth as many times as you want, but there can never be more than a certain number present on the map. However Field Marshals do not count against this limit.

• Defeat the Bandit Leader

In order to do so, you can make use of a specific tactic. All sectors are led by a Bandit Leader. If you defeat him, all remaining troops in the sector will flee. But most of the time, this fearsome enemy is well guarded by his underling henchmen. Instead of taking each camp one by one, you should try to eliminate a sector in one go to save as many troops as possible.

• Use distraction

The good thing is that you can distract enemy camps by attacking them with a Marshal. Your Heavy Units are well suited to take over this task, as they last very long in combat, so you will not lose as many of them. However, you might not win a fight with them as they only deal little damage.

• Finish off the Bandit Leader quickly

While being distracted, you can sneak your main attack force past the other camps to attack the Bandit Leader directly. For this fight, you should use your Attack Troops. They can deal a lot of damage if used correctly and finish off fights quickly.

Hint(s):

• "Distracting"is similar to a technique you might know as ‘blocking’. Other than with blocking, fights do last longer on the Expedition islands. Also, you will not get the troops of ongoing combats refunded when you make the bandit leader flee. So time is of the essence here!
• You can send troops back and forth from your home zone and the Expedition islands, in case you want to change your strategy. It will not increase the unit counter. But units that have been defeated on the Expedition island still count.
• To be successful, you should try taking the island sector by sector, but be on the lookout for shortcuts!

Setting up your army

• After finding a suitable Expedition island, you should prepare your troops and Marshals. Visit the Expedition island and see what’s on there before sending any troops. You can visit it like you would do with any Adventure.
• On the island, you will find bandits who inhabit the island and who have built defenses on it. As in Adventures, sectors are guarded by bandit camps and a Bandit Leader, who is keeping this wild bunch in line.
• There are different types of bandit encampments on each island. You can easily recognize from the type, what kind of units are placed in there.
• Look at the map and try to find a suitable path to the Map Boss. Based on what units you will encounter on the way, you should set up your own troops.

Ranged camps are holding only ranged units

Melee camps are holding only melee units

Cavalry camps are holding only cavalry units

Mixed camps are holding up to three different unit types

Bandit Leaders are holding different unit types and a Bandit Lieutenant

Map Bosses are holding the different unit types and the Bandit Leader

How to conduct a combat
New combat system

The Expedition mode uses a different combat system than the one you are used to. The biggest difference is that combat is now conducted in real time. That means that you can watch each combat while it is happening on the map and also step in to change your troops. Here are the key rules and features:

• A fight will always be carried out between two unit types.
  You can select the unit type which you want to send out to the battlefield.
• Units are being deployed in stacks. Usually, Heavy units will be deployed in stacks
  of 10 and Attack units will be deployed in stacks of 20. The NPC will always match your unit stack size.
• Each turn, your unit stack will deal damage to the enemy stack. The damage of all units in a stack gets summed up and will be distracted from the opposing stack's hit points.
• You can switch unit types during combat anytime using the unit switch controls by clicking. The new stack of units will deploy after either your current stack or the enemy's stack has been defeated.
• If any unit stack gets defeated, the units of the remaining stack will get refreshed out of the general's or bandit camp's unit pool. Already damaged units will not heal. The defeated party will deploy a new stack.
• The enemy will also switch his units from time to time.
• Your goal will be to find the most advantageous match up, so that you send the best suited units against the ones of the enemy.
• Bosses are always deployed last. Although they are single units, they usually deal higher damage.

Troops in combat

Unit Types

There are 3 different unit types in the new combat system used in the Expedition mode: Ranged, Melee, Cavalry. All these unit types have one counterpart which they are good against and one which they are bad against. Unit types which are good against another unit do bonus damage on top of their base damage. Here is a simplified overview of unit types and their counterparts:

Unit class

Independent of their type, units can have a class. There are two classes:

• Heavy Units
  They withstand a lot of damage and will prolong combat. They are mostly used to divert (block) other camps, while your Attack Units will try to defeat the Sector Boss. These units do not deal bonus damage against any unit type.
• Attack Units
  Attack Units deal a lot of damage and can defeat enemies quite fast.They are mostly used to defeat Sector Bosses as quickly as possible, so that other units in that sector flee. Attack Units deal bonus damage.
  
  
  Hint(s):
  

  • Watch the enemy NPC’s units. They also have a unit type, but might have additional bonus damage against other types than the regular ones!
  • Also be very careful, sometimes the NPC camps will change the unit they will send out next so make sure you change your next unit to match it.

Based on forumpost